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Bianchi still fastest after trading Ferrari for Force India

Jules Bianchi was the fastest driver Wednesday at the Magny Cours Young Drivers test. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Frenchman Jules Bianchi topped the times at the Magny Cours Young Drivers test again today.

However, having done it in a Ferrari F2012 on Tuesday, Wednesday the Frenchman was back at the wheel of the Force India that he regularly drives on the Friday of Grand Prix meetings.

“A very enjoyable day and great to do so many laps,” said Bianchi.

“I’ve done a lot of Friday practice sessions with the team, but when you spend a full day in the car, you can do so much more and really start to find the limit. It was a chance for me to get more used to the control systems and experience the car on both high and low fuel.”

It’s rare indeed for a driver to have the chance to sample Ferrari and Mercedes power on consecutive days, although the feat was achieved by Pedro de la Rosa in Barcelona in November 2008, when he swapped his regular McLaren for an outing in a Ferrari-powered Force India.

“The team asked me to work on the setup and we saw the lap times improve during the day. The time in the car today was very valuable and will allow me to help the team even more in the remaining seven races of the season.”

Bianchi was a second faster than Sam Bird, who had another day assessing updates at Mercedes, and the importance of his work was emphasized by the fact that Michael Schumacher took the time to come along and watch from the pits.

“We’ve had a second very positive day at the test and successfully completed our planned schedule,” said Bird. “Including the evaluation of the performance items that we wanted to achieve, we’re happy with the results that we’ve seen so far, and there is a lot of information to go through to hopefully help improve the car.”

For the final day, on Thursday, the W03 will be driven by New Zealander Brendon Hartley. The former Red Bull protégé is a regular in the Mercedes simulator and has been given the opportunity mainly so that he has a better reference point.

With Bianchi busy at Force India, the Ferrari was taken over by Davide Rigon, the 26-year-old former GP2 and Superleague driver who had a test for Minardi at Vallelunga as long ago as November 2005.

Like Hartley at Mercedes, he is a simulator driver for Ferrari, and the aim today was for him to get a correlation between the virtual world and the real one. Rigon completed an impressive 165 laps.

“I’ve already been to Magny Cours twice in other categories, but driving a Formula One car here was incredible!” he said. “At the start I was very excited, but after 10 laps, I was able to concentrate completely on the day’s busy program.

“Doing so many laps gave me the opportunity to improve my feeling at the wheel and to understand the difference between the work on the simulator and being on-track in a real car. It was also useful that, technically, this track is very complete.”